Book reading for December?

[Lu]

I got started on 景恒街 today and now realise the plan was to read 异兽记 first. But I like what I've read so far so I think I'll just keep at it. If anyone wants to join I'll make a thread, if not I'll just enjoy it by myself, someone else can make a thread for 异兽记 and I'll join that one at a later point (next month or so).

[murrayjames]

I am up for reading 景恒街 and  异兽记 and in that order. (Do we have a third person?) I’ll probably start with 景恒街 next week after I finish 草鞋湾.

 

 

[roddy]

Geiko was keen on 异兽记 I think. The text of that one is available online, it seems, not sure about 景恒街. I have both on the way, but another book to finish first. I'll keep an eye on any topics and help out with language questions if I can. 

 

 

[murrayjames]

What’s the finish-first book? 去洞庭? I’ve been meaning to check out the sample you linked to.

[Geiko]

2 hours ago, roddy said:

Geiko was keen on 异兽记 I think.

 

But I ordered the paper edition at jd.com and I won't start reading it until it arrives, so feel free to begin with 景恒街.

[roddy]

3 hours ago, murrayjames said:

What’s the finish-first book? 去洞庭?

Yep, getting through a chapter or two of that a day. I'm really enjoying it. 

[murrayjames]

On 5/28/2020 at 5:10 PM, roddy said:

异兽志 looks to be available online, although I can't promise it's complete and not riddled with OCR errors. 

 

On 5/29/2020 at 3:42 PM, Geiko said:

I searched for the whole book in .txt, I think It was from this site.

 

Roddy’s link doesn’t open for me (with VPN on or off). I downloaded the txt file through Geiko’s link; the file contains only the first seven chapters. Then I searched for 异兽志 and 景恒街 online and couldn’t find a complete copy of either. So, no CTA fun as of yet. I did buy both books on 京东 and look forward to reading both this summer.

[murrayjames]

By the way, I suggest we start topics for both books. Even if we read the books asynchronously—in different orders and at different speeds—the social aspect sure is fun. I know I’ve enjoyed catching up on all of your 草鞋湾 posts as I go through the novel.

[roddy]

29 minutes ago, murrayjames said:

Roddy’s link doesn’t open for me (with VPN on or off).

Looks to have been cached by Google a few days ago (not sure about the individual chapter pages), so hopefully it's just temporarily down. 

13 minutes ago, murrayjames said:

Even if we read the books asynchronously—in different orders and at different speeds—the social aspect sure is fun.

Yeah, I've sometimes wondered if the 'Book (or whatever) of the Month' approach is the right one. It gets a few folk on board, but it'd be easy for later readers to feel that topic is 'done' and not share their experiences / questions. 

[murrayjames]

“Book of the Now”

[roddy]

"Book of the Whenever You're Ready, There's No Rush."

[Geiko]

4 minutes ago, roddy said:

"Book of the Whenever You're Ready, There's No Rush."

?

[Lu]

'Reading together'? 'Let's read together'?

 

Any ideas on what to do with discussions of and reactions to the plot and spoilers? On the first read-through it's clear: I'm the first person to read chapter 5, so I put everything about the plot in spoiler tags. But at some point two people have finished the book, one person is at chapter 15, and if then someone reaches chapter 5 and says something about it, I'd like to react without spoiler tags because I feel it hampers the discussion. If I spoiler-tag it, the person who just read chapter 5 may think my reaction pertains to chapter 15 and only read it after finishing the whole book, by which point the feelings are not immediate anymore.

[ouyangjun]

So the next books are 异兽志 and 景恒街, right (which is June and July)?  Any additional info on these books?  What are the reading levels, how many pages are the books, etc..  It will give everyone an idea of how long it will take them to finish.

 

I'm a bit behind as I just started the May book, 草鞋湾, a couple days ago.  From a difficult level I'd say this one is easy (if ranking is easy, medium, hard).  I should be able to get through this in a week or so as long as life doesn't get too much in the way.  

 

Curious about the June book so I can decide whether I jump on that one or wait until July.

[Lu]

Alright, I've gone ahead and made a thread for my current book 《景恒街》 here and I tried to make clear how welcome future readers are as well. Come join now or later, whenever you're ready, there's no rush!

[ouyangjun]

Thanks @Lu.  I'm going to look to finish up the May book soon and see if I jump on this one or wait for July.  In regards to July, is it fair to say that the July book will be  异兽志?  If so, then people can get the book ahead of time so they can start at the beginning of the month.  That was my issue with the May book, it took a while to ship from China to me in the US.  Thanks

[Lu]

1 hour ago, ouyangjun said:

In regards to July, is it fair to say that the July book will be  异兽志?

Looks like it, although whether it becomes the July book or rather the August book depends on people's reading speed and JD's shipping speed I think.

 

Meanwhile I hope you enjoy 《草鞋湾》!

[roddy]

On 6/2/2020 at 6:33 AM, murrayjames said:

What’s the finish-first book? 去洞庭? I’ve been meaning to check out the sample you linked to.

Did anyone ever look at this? I picked it up again yesterday and read the first few pages and noticed how there's little stuff mentioned which fits in later - not in the sense of major plot revelations or anything, just 'oh, that's why she did that'. Reminded my how impressively tight the book is. But I'm the only person I know who's read it, so I worry I might be wrong and actually it's a badly written mess.

[Lu]

I've finished 《景恒街》, but I think I'm the first and various other people are in various other points in this book or other books, so, shall we set a Book of the Whatever again for October? I'll read a translation or short stories or something else in between so everyone can catch up. I think next up was 《异兽志》, who would be interested in joining? Or who has other nominations?

[roddy]

异兽志 is next on my list, I think, or it can be. Hopefully would be able to keep up, will depend a bit on work and life. But that's always true.